Ha. I just installed Mint into a VM to support friends who run it. Guess what, DNS didn't work, so I had a closer look. It is running some middleman (again!) which sits at 127.0.1.1. Red Hat camp apparently can't write real software, so they add layers between existing software, claiming they are doing things better.

Segfault wrote:DNS didn't work, so I had a closer look. It is running some middleman (again!) which sits at 127.0.1.1

Local DNS forwarding has it's place, but installed by default on a desktop isn't it...I really don't understand this current trend of taking something simple that works, then obfuscating and complicating it. This kind of behaviour has to be job-creation for RedHat's paid support, right?Either that or the hackers are just bored, but surely there are some real bugs to fix somewhere.

Wheelerof4te wrote:whatever you do will make your laptop a nice barbeque.

What is this "laptop" thing you speak of? Is it some kind of miniature dog? I thought barbecuing those was illegal...

Wheelerof4te wrote:It is just an effort to unify soundsystem on Linux. Making new standards and all of that.

There already is a unified standard, it's called ALSA and it works just fine. Puseaudio doesn't "unify" anything, all it does is add another layer of complexity (and latency) into the audio path and another competing audio API. And some other crap which one person in 1000 will actually use, like network audio... Which can be done without pulse anyway.If it filled a real need, I'd be down with it. But just like another piece of must-have hatware I might mention, it's fixing something that isn't broken in the most complicated way possible.And it can't do half the cool tricks ALSA can do anyway. What's the point?

steve_v wrote:What is this "laptop" thing you speak of? Is it some kind of miniature dog? I thought barbecuing those was illegal...

No, those are called "lapdogs". I am talking about movable, highly mobile PCs

steve_v wrote:If it filled a real need, I'd be down with it. But just like another piece of must-have hatware I might mention, it's fixing something that isn't broken in the most complicated way possible.And it can't do half the cool tricks ALSA can do anyway. What's the point?

Don't know, don't really care. If I had to worry about things like that, I wouldn't even be using my computer for much of anything but complaining.

Believe or not, lots of less technical users think PulseAudio is ALSA replacement. Even on Gentoo forums some noobs speak about "removing ALSA" and installing PulseAudio. There is an ALSA replacement, but it is not called PulseAudio. It is OSS4.

Wheelerof4te wrote:No, those are called "lapdogs". I am talking about movable, highly mobile PCs

Oh those PCs. I always forget about them. I guess I still think of computers as "the big whirry box with flashy lights that lives in a nest of cables".

I can't resist a small technical nitpick with that fan comment though... Using more CPU time will generate more heat whether ones fan is working or not (only one fan? Really? ). The fan just moves it around.I haven't actually measured it, but given the ridiculous CPU overhead pulse entails it probably is a fairly effective heater.

Segfault wrote:Believe or not, lots of less technical users think PulseAudio is ALSA replacement. Even on Gentoo forums some noobs speak about "removing ALSA" and installing PulseAudio. There is an ALSA replacement, but it is not called PulseAudio. It is OSS4.

Indeed. OSS4 has been around a while, but it's never really taken off. Probably because ALSA doesn't actually need replacing.

All four major GNU/Linux distributions use PA by default. Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu and Arch derivatives all install PA in their default setups.These distributions amount for about 90% of all GNU/Linux users. ALSA only is already niche. Tell me, why should developers reject PA, when they can be sure it has a future since most people use it? I'd say soundsystem in Linux is kinda unified now.As for OpenBSD, it wiped my drive once unintentionally. Did I mention it has a "great" installer?

My specific problem with PA is that it is a completely unnecessary abstraction layer (in my systems at least) and every extra level adds more things to go wrong and makes the system more difficult to troubleshoot thus I prefer to run pure ALSA on all my boxen.

Wheelerof4te wrote:As for OpenBSD, it wiped my drive once unintentionally. Did I mention it has a "great" installer?

Well, "great" is a matter of opinion and I happen to _love_ their installer, as do the Alpine Linux team if their installer is anything to go by

Anyway, you were backed up, right?

The thing to remember about OpenBSD is that it is created by the developers and for the developers and so bleating like an outraged Ubuntu n00b will get you nowhere

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:The thing to remember about OpenBSD is that it is created by the developers and for the developers and so bleating like an outraged Ubuntu n00b will get you nowhere

I know that PA is just a layer on top of ALSA, that's why I've specifically said:

Wheelerof4te wrote: ALSA only

As for TrueOS, I have tried it, but they don't have a driver for my Broadcom Wi-Fi yet. TrueOS makes it easy to check hardware compatibility without actually installing it. I don't doubt it to be a good overall OS.Anyway, thank you for scolding me, I don't get that much